Easter 5 (C) : Homily / Sermon

By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples. (John 13:35)

Everybody, absolutely everybody, knows that Christians should love another, that the Christian Gospel is about love, that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. Indeed, Christianity is so much about love, that in times gone by to say someone was a ‘Christian’ wouldn’t necessarily have related to their beliefs or their prayer life or their attendance at mass, but rather to their general kindness and compassion and generosity. “She’s a real Christian” people used to say (it all might sound a bit old-fashioned now).



But there’s a problem with this, because it can come to seem, not that Christians should love their neighbours, but that the only thing Christianity is about is kindness, and being ‘nice’. It is often the way in which we think of the Christian moral code, and the way in which we teach it to children. It is often the way those outside the Church, understand the faith. “Jesus wants us to be nice” - it might be an exaggeration, but there is a lot of truth in it. It is why we find it so hard to explain the existence for evil It is vague, it is general, and it allows people to think that all kinds of things are all right, so long as you are nice to other people.
Jesus teaches something different - he sets a higher standard. Love one another as I have loved you, he says, and by the love you have for one another everyone will know you follow me. Being nice is, well, nice, but it doesn’t come close.
It is first a matter of what love means. It isn’t really about being nice at all. Actually, Jesus wasn’t ‘nice’. The crucifix isn't nice. In fact he upset people, he made a lot of enemies. He disrupted the trading in the temple. He insulted the religious leaders. He unsettled the Roman government. He might have challenged people, and upset them, but he loved them, loved to the point of death. "Father, forgive them", he said "they do not know what they do". He did not give some of his time or a few coins in cash - he gave his life. The command to love is about sacrifice.
And even more than this - love is not just about doing good things - it is about relationship, it is about community. It is not about a series of actions, but a quality of life. The commandment of love is not just for the individual, but for our common life.
How do we know if we are following the commandment of love? - not, let it be noticed, by whether this person or that person does the right thing, whether they are kind or generous or even forgiving - no, we know that we are following the commandment of love by the kind of people we are - not by actions, but by attitudes, not by commandments, but by community, not by rules, but by virtues, not by individual deeds, but by the quality of life which we share.
And this is why our blessed Lady is so important to us as an example and an encouragement, and why it is so appropriate that we celebrated her in this month of May.
What did she do? So very little - and yet so very much.
The Gospels tell us that as a witness to the life of her son she ”pondered these things in her heart”. The Gospels tell us of her fiat, her great “Let it be” in response to God’s will. We hear of her anxiety in the temple, the prediction of the sword that will pierce her heart, her sorrow at the foot of the cross, and of her praying with the disciples on the day of Pentecost.
No great works, no drama, no writings, few words even - but constancy, perseverance and love. A Heart that knows the deepest depths of sorrow, and yet which commands the greatest heights of love.
She, the first disciples, the greatest disciple, the mother of the whole Church, in her own life lived these words: By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.